readjust the daily conditions was a hard, hard one to
solve, harder obviously for Sir William than it was for Rachel. The
girl was uplifted in those days by the sense that, however difficult she
might find it to carry out in detail, the general scheme of her life lay
clear before her. She was going to devote it to her father, she was
going to carry out that unmade promise, which she now considered more
binding on her than ever, although her mother had warned her against
making it, the promise that her father should come first. But the
warning at the moment it was made had not been accepted by Rachel, and
in the exaltation of her self-sacrifice it was forgotten now. She saw
her way, as she conceived, plainly in front of her. Rendel, with his
usual understanding and wisdom, did not obtrude himself on her during
those days. He had quite made up his mind not to ask for her decision
until there might be some hope of its being made in his favour. He had
felt Lady Gore's death as acutely as though he had the right of kinship
to grieve for her. He was miserably conscious that something inestimably
precious had gone out of his life, almost before he had had time to
realise his happiness in possessing it. But neither he nor Rachel
understood what Lady Gore's death had meant to Sir William. And the poor
little Rachel, rudderless, bewildered, tried to do the best she could
for her father's life by planning her own with absolute reference to it,
by putting at his disposal all the bare, empty hours available for
companionship which up to now had been so straitly, so tenderly, so
happily filled. And he on his side, conscious of some of her purpose,
but unaware of the extent to which she carried her deliberate intention
of consecrating herself to him, of bearing the burden of his destiny,
believed that he had to bear the overwhelming burthen of guiding hers.
Instead of going in the late afternoon hours of those summer days to his
club, where he would have found some companionship that was not
associated with his grief, and passing an hour agreeably, he wistfully
went home, feeling that Rachel would be expecting him. And Rachel on her
side felt it a duty to put away any regular occupation that might have
proved engrossing, and so to ordain her life that she should be always
ready and at her father's orders if he should appear. And, thus
deliberately cutting themselves loose from such minor anchorages as they
might have had, they tried to